| You’ll never overcome your addiction until you do this! (And a $20 gift- just spend it on whatever you want today!)  It’s a fact. The brain gets locked into a pattern when it is stressed. Continual long term stress forces your brain to wire itself to stay stuck in a rut. While being stuck in a rut is an expression, it turns out it is a real brain state as well! The rats prove it. Scary stuff. When the rats were forced to be stressed they were shown to repeat negative or non-productive behaviors. Regardless of the change in their environment, the brains of the rats could not break out of their rut. Why? In stressed rats, neurons in the dorsomedial striatum, an area associated with goal-directed behavior (for example, pressing a lever to get a specific treat), had shrunk, making fewer connections to other cells. Meanwhile neurons in the dorsolateral striatum, an area that controls habits (such as pressing the same lever regardless of outcome), had grown and formed more branches. Read the article in ScienceMag Get in the groove. Just not THIS groove. If you have continual stress or difficult life events, have you found yourself doing the same thing over and over and fell into a state of hopelessness when you try to to break out of the rut? Stress shuts down the ability to to set and focus on a goal. So, playing Angry Birds or Words With Friends (or doing anything repetitive and simple) is not the best use of your time, but it is what your brain needs as a response to stress. We might call it avoidance, but maybe it is really the rut, or groove we have carved into our brain. It’s the neurons. The stress creates neural growth that forms branches that makes it harder and harder to get out of the rut. What to do? Eliminate stress. (And how do you do this?) Change your reaction to stress. Stop the stress chemicals from flooding your body. Change your self talk. Exercise like your life depends on it. We perpetuate stress by doing the same things, telling ourselves the same things and focusing on the hopelessness. And since you know how much I care about you, you know I don’t want you to stay stuck. I’ve been stuck. I know how hard it is. Even now, I go through periods of super stuckness. When I feel it coming on, the first thing I do is change what I am SAYING to myself. Start by noticing what you are repeating in your negative self talk about the stress. “I hate my life”, “This is hopeless”, “He/she will never change”. Change the statement. “I will find a way to see beyond this”, “I do want to better today”, “I will focus on love and compassion today”. Spend time in Meditation, doing Self Hypnosis, listen to music you love and do a workout that you love. If you Love To Exercise and teach your body to love it, your life will change. And your brain will no longer flood your body with stress chemicals. That cortisol will make you fat, depressed and sick. If you wake up stressed in the morning, stop what you are saying and what you are focusing on. Choose to Wake Up Happy, and your entire day will change. If you can’t sleep at night and you can’t cure your insomnia, you feel worse, deepen the rut and have less chance of breaking free. The Anxiety and Depression is not going away on it’s own. Let me at least distract you from your rut with the best night’s sleep you have ever had. A long night of Deep Sleep will change everything. My favorites for stress relief are Sweet Surrender Deep Sleep Wake Up Happy Cure for Anxiety The Anxiety Cure has been raved about by so many of my readers. I am really proud of you all for totally taking on your anxiety and changing your brain. And if you are ready to Quit Drinking with Hypnosis and make it easy, please, please, please… go here. Lots of free videos and techniques that will change everything. Feels great, doesn’t it? Look! It’s for you. 20 Bucks. Additional discount off regular and SALE prices! No strings attached.  I have not written in a while, and I want to make it up to you. Here is my gift to you, just use this code to get a big fat $20 off anything I have. Start here- www.Wendi.com or go directly to the cart at http://hypnosis.wendi.com coupon —- > > MAKEMEHAPPY Until Tuesday, September 27 at Midnight, use it on anything! Love, love, love you. Wendi |